January 19, 2010

Now that Candlestick is closed, pop-ups are nearly sure outs. They’re also a sign of hitters being over-powered (in some cases), so it might tell us something about the pitch. All the leaders here are four-seam fastballs, which is to be expected when it comes to finding infield flies.

Coaches Greg Walker, Joey Cora and Don Cooper met with various groups this offseason to address the following areas — hitting, fielding and pitching.

“You have to pay a price to win,” Cooper said Tuesday, nine days after conducting a mini-camp in Glendale, Ariz., with a group of pitchers with assorted experience. “Each guy has to do his preparation.”

Here’s a closer look at what happened in specific departments with the start of spring training about a month away. …

The Chicago White Sox have agreed to terms on a one-year, $3.45-million contract with left-handed pitcher John Danks, avoiding arbitration.

Danks, 24, was 13-11 with a 3.77 ERA (84 ER/200.1 IP) and 149 strikeouts in 32 starts last season. He set career highs in wins and IP and limited opponents to a .245 average, fourth-lowest among American League left-handers.

Danks has gone 25-20 with a 3.55 ERA (156 ER/395.1 IP) and 308 strikeouts in 65 starts over the last two seasons combined.

That’s all it took for Greg Walker to take a deep sigh of relief and realize that the enigma looked to be back to an All-Star.

No holes. No mechanical flaws. No signs of a player who was carrying the weight of the South Side on his shoulders.

… ”But to be honest, it took the first five swings in the cage to show me that he had passed the eye test. Mechanically, this is the Alex Rios I saw on tape when he was in Toronto.”

… ”There were some that felt we needed to change his mechanics,” Walker said. ”I wasn’t in that camp. I don’t think he needs a change mechanically. We tried to attack the problems that developed late last season, but when that didn’t work, we decided, ‘Well, let’s just give him some time off.’ My hope was that the time away would be what he needed, and the two or three things he developed would disappear.”